Program evaluation and results communication are essential when establishing the effectiveness of the program with regards to its objectives and goals. This paper seeks to establish the goals of the mindfulness program and the population it serves. The key questions that were to be answered by the evaluation will be well restated. Subsequently, the paper will present results using bar charts and tables. It will explain how the results recorded in the tables, and the charts will be presented and shared with the counselors, colleagues, and shareholders. Finally, the paper will establish how counselors must be aware of the impact of the program results on various cultural groups and how the results of the hypothetical evaluation will be useful for refining and improving the program.
Evaluation Results for Mindfulness Mental Health Counseling Program
Mindfulness, mental health counseling program, is a self-care program that has been in place for close to five years now. The main objective of this program is to give counseling professionals an opportunity to undertake self-care courses that will help them manage stress in the workplace. This program has various courses designed for the different professional counselors including a psychologist, occupational therapist, students taking counseling related courses and school counselors. Counseling is too involving and sometimes the professionals in this field fall victims of emotional stress, to ensure that these professionals are free from burnout, distress, and impairment offer guidelines on how to maintain mindfulness at a personal level (In Sangganjanavanich, 2014). Most of the counselors end up forgetting about their mental health while trying to help others (Richards, Campenni, & Muse-Burke, 2010) To establish the effectiveness of this program with regards to how it has since accomplished its objective of reducing work-related stress among the counselors, results from the data and information collected were compiled for examination. The evaluation sought to answer various questions that include whether counselors involved in the program have shown a reduced level of distress and burnout after undertaking the program and whether they have shown improved levels of self-compassion.
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Communicating Results to Counselors and Colleagues
Results of this evaluation were obtained from interviews, surveys, questionnaires, observations, focus groups, records, and documentation. For the counselors and colleagues in the program to have a clear understanding of how the program has been performing over the years, this evaluation will employ various presentation techniques. To present the numerical data obtained through surveys and questionnaires, tables and graphs will be used. For the qualitative data obtained through observations, records, documentation, and focus groups, presentation methods that include case study notes, field notes, observation notes, photographs and documents obtained from emails will be used.
Tables are normally used to present data in newspapers, textbooks, PowerPoint and journals (Olsen, 2012). Considering that it is impossible to have a meeting where all the colleagues and counselors involved in the program are all present, it will be important to have the results of the data compiled in journals for everyone’s access. To establish the difference that exists between pre- and post-intervention burnout results obtained from the subjects before the beginning of the program and after the completion of the program will be compared using tables. Using tables to present results from surveys and questionnaires have been established to be effective in the sense that, the audiences normally want to absorb a lot of information within a very short period without necessarily reviewing it later after the presentation. For the case of this evaluation, complex tables will not be used to avoid exhausting the audience considering that their professions already demands a lot from them.
Graphs will also be used to present numerical results to colleagues and counselors. Apart from tables, graphs are very effective in offering a summative visual presentation of the results obtained during data collection ( Olsen, 2012 ). Bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts are the three types of charts that will be used in presenting the results for this evaluation. Bar charts will be used to compare the results obtained after using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale to measure the level of burnout from the participants before enrolling in the program and after completing the program. This is deemed to be effective in offering a visual presentation of the changes the counselors will undergo hence establishing whether the program is effective in meeting its objectives or not. The table below represents the average levels of stress before and after the program. These results were obtained from participants who used the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale as a self-reporting instrument. The table shows the average levels of depression, anxiety, and stress numerically presented based on the DASS scale below.
Score Interpretation: Depression (D) Anxiety (A) Stress (S) ( Beiter et al., 2015 ).
| Normal | 0 – 9 | 0 – 7 | 0 – 14 |
| Mild | 10 – 13 | 8 – 9 | 15 – 18 |
| Moderate | 14 – 20 | 10 – 14 | 19 – 25 |
| Severe | 21 – 27 | 15 – 19 | 26 – 33 |
| Extremely Severe | 28+ | 20+ | 34 + |
Results Obtained Before the Program
| Average Score From Participants | Description | |
| Depression | 19 | Moderate |
| Anxiety | 17 | Moderate |
| Stress | 21 | Severe |
Results Obtained After the Program
| Average Score From Participants | Description | |
| Depression | 12 | Mild |
| Anxiety | 13 | Mild |
| Stress | 14 | Moderate |
Bar Chart: DASS Scale Results
For the case of qualitative data collected the presentation methods that include case study notes, field notes, observation notes, and photographs will be used to deliver the results obtained from the evaluation. To make it easy for the counselors and colleagues who have little time on their hand to comprehend the implications of the qualitative results, photographs were taken during the time of data collection will be put beside participants responses during the presentation so that the audiences can relate with the program. Additionally, a summary of the study notes, field notes, and observation notes will be presented using PowerPoint slides. Notes will be used to explain further the information contained in the slides. Both qualitative results and the quantitative results will be printed to posters and journals.
Communicating Results to Stakeholders
Considering that stakeholders have considerable interest to the operations of the program and that some might not have enough time to go through all the results on a single sitting, the best way to present the results to them would be through emails, newsletters, and short interim presentations. Interactive emails will be sent to all the stakeholders, the messages contained in the emails will be precise and direct to the point. For the case of mindfulness program, the emails will contain brief reports accompanied with brief PowerPoint presentations. The reports attached to the stakeholders’ emails will contain an executive summary, reasons for the evaluation, questions related to the evaluation, participant description and the final results obtained. To make it easy for them to understand, visuals that represent the results will be presented. In the case where stakeholders, for instance, the board members, community leaders, managers, and grantors are not available through mail, the results of the evaluation will be inscribed in articles and newsletters. This way, they will easily access them for their evaluation.
Considering that some of the stakeholders might have competing interests with regards to the results of the evaluation, it will be of utmost importance to identify any possible conflict of interest and in response employ appropriate controls to ascertain that the impacts of such competitions are minimized. In the case of Mindfulness program, all the stakeholders will be convinced to have faith and belief in the process by engaging them in interactive talks before the results are presented to them. It will be important to engage them in efforts of escalating their levels of faith towards scientific research and its importance towards developing new ways of improving the program.
Ethical and Cultural Considerations When Communicating Results
Considering that most counselors might have little knowledge regarding the factors that foster unethical communication and interpretations of results, it is very essential to take a role as the researcher to inform the subjects involved in the research about the ethical implications the results might have on individual attitudes, beliefs motivations, and institutional policies (Coultas, 2007). The counselors should be enlightened about the implications beforehand to avoid issues that may arise due to conflict competition.
When communicating results, it is very important to discern the many factors that may potentially lead to unethical behaviors during the process. It is important to ensure that the results presented do not offer overly optimistic benefits and on the other had it should not underestimate the risks of the results on the various cultural groups (Coultas, 2007). Additionally, the perceived harms should be communicated early enough. To ascertain that harms are minimized and that ethical principles are adhered to, counselors should be made aware of falsification, plagiarism and fabrication of results. All the issues above will be evaded at all costs with regards to this evaluation.
Using Results to Improve the Program
The results obtained from the evaluation as seen from the bar graphs indicate that the program has since been effective towards achieving its goals and objectives. Being that the program is effective, there are several ways in which the results of the hypothetical evaluation will be useful for refining and improving the program. Firstly, the results will be used as a definite tool in adding more services and activities to the already existing ones that will help boost the program outcomes. Secondly, the positive outcome recorded will necessitate the need to acquire more resources to support the program owing to its effectiveness.
Additionally, the results will be used as a basis to target more groups and participants who are potentially affected by the same issues dealt with by the program. Lastly, implementations and improvements with regards to the results and recommendations will be effected. Based on the results obtained from the DASS, it is advisable for the institutions involved in the program to consider refining the program and encouraging more people to join is as a way of reducing stress-related work.
Using Results to Advance the Counseling Field
Considering that the program in place has various courses and activities meant to reduce work-related stress that has been established to be effective towards its course, it is important to encourage more people to enroll in the program. The results obtained attest to the fact that keeping a stress diary, managing your time, engaging in physical activities, and relaxation techniques are very important towards your mental health. The guidelines provided in the program help in improving the mental health as confirmed by the results obtained. The knowledge acquired from the program is very beneficial towards the counseling field because a majority of stress victims normally wait till their condition is severe while they can start managing their stress levels early enough by enrolling to the program.
Owing to its effectiveness, the program should be adopted across the various state as a way of promoting mental health. Campaign towards creating mental health awareness should be endorsed to reduce instances of stress among individuals in all professions. Applied research and program review inform evidence-based practice in counseling because results obtained ethically are essential towards adding more services and activities to the already existing ones that will help boost the program outcomes.
References
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(2015). The prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of college students. Journal of affective disorders , 173 , 90-96.
Coultas, D. (2007). Ethical considerations in the interpretation and communication of clinical
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In Sangganjanavanich, V. F., & In Reynolds, C. C. A. (2014). Introduction to Professional
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Olsen, W. K. (2012). Data collection: Key debates and methods in social research .
Richards, K., Campenni, C., & Muse-Burke, J. (2010). Self-care and well-being in mental health
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